(1) The Individuals

Born in Falkirk, a
place he has revisited just once, on a wet Wednesday (and
it was closed). Each male generation of his father's
family either worked in a bank or went to sea, which might
explain a few things if you believe in genetics as
destiny. Grew up in Aberdeen, and in more egalitarian
days, when such things were easier (hooray), was the first
in his family to go to university, studying Lang'n'Lit at
Aberdeen, which he loved, and at Kent at Canterbury, which
he did not. Flunked out of an attempted doctorate (the
words "George Meredith" can still bring him out in hives)
and dossed around as waiter, bartender, overeducated
skinhead until "Music saved my life!" Was the fiddler in
artfolk band Fiddler's Dram (with Alan and others) until
they had a huge novelty-hit single, "Day Trip To Bangor".
Fiddler's Dram did one more tour then gratefully took the
money and the gold discs and ran, in Ian's and Alan's case
into what was then an aspiring dance outfit, The Oyster
Ceilidh Band……

Writes much of the band's output of lyrics, generally in
consultation with John. Has been banned, er,
democratically outvoted by other Oysters from playing sax
on stage. Until recently lived in a Cypriot/Kurdish
village in north London, where his immediate neighbours
were Jamaican, Pakistani, Somali, Greek Cypriot, Chinese
and South American, and he liked it very much, thanks,
apart from the police helicopters at night. Has now
relocated to a village north-east of London.
Currently into: North Africa, Iran, Turkey; the
poems of C D Wright and of Michael Donaghy; and the
novels of Orhan Pamuk; though none of these are
likely to have an influence on future song-writing.

Upbringing: totally
normal, except for driving parents and siblings demento
with whistles, recorders, banging on the piano, etc. They
did not deserve this. Early groups (savour the period
charm of some of these names): The Clee Three; Madame
John; Cuspidor; Beggar's Description; Fiddler's Dram… also
a stint with Albion Band. Instruments tried: guitars,
fiddle, mandolin, banjo, bowed psaltery, bones, bandura,
various guitar synths, sitar, drums (failed), trumpet
(failed failed), banjo-mandolin (eeyuk!)… Alan says: "I
dropped out of Kent University to become a medieval
minstrel and pizza chef, though not usually at the same
time. Invented the banana-flavoured bolognese sauce for
spaghetti, which remains a signature dish in the sense
that no one else on the planet will touch it with a
bargepole. Got heavily into the guitar; in fact got so far
into the guitar that once when Ian was wittering about
recent events I had to say: "General election? What
general election?" - which I have not been allowed to
forget. Found myself in The Oyster Ceilidh Band and the
rest you know. Married Jane Elder in 1988, one son Harry
born September '93. Made two solo albums, Hall Place
(1997) and Makerfield (2003), and a trio album Nomads
(2006) with Brendan Power and Lucy Randall.

Born 17th July 1965
in the Forest of Dean, Gloucestershire. Very Welsh dad,
Tottenham mum (whose brother incidentally is folk
singer/raconteur Derek Brimstone). Moved to Belgium in
1969 to a beautiful town called Namur, in the Ardennes,
which I still think of as my true childhood home. Stayed
there until I was 13, so French was pretty much my main
language. Went to Birmingham for my teenage years, but was
dropped back a year because I could hardly write in
English. Went to Sussex University in 1984 and came out
with a BSc Hons in Experimental Psychology, whatever that
is. Have been in Brighton ever since, and love it.

I didn't choose to be a drummer - it chose me. I
pummelled my mum's saucepans, knitting needles, paint pots
etc from a pre-school age, and joined a punk band at
school without actually having any drums. (Cardboard boxes
and rulers worked fine). One day, while I was destroying
my mum's typewriter case with wooden spoons along to The
Who, my visiting grandmother said "You need a drum kit",
and promptly bought me one. My very supportive parents
paid for some lessons with a fine teacher, Freddy Wells,
and that set me up.

In the years following Uni I didn't make much as a
fledgling musician, so I worked as a
baker/scaffolder/gardener/office clerk to sustain my drum
habit. I was also living proof of the classic drummer
joke: "What do you call a drummer with no girlfriend?…
Homeless"

I cut my teeth playing in a raunchy R&B band (think
Dr Feelgood rather than Jamelia) during the 80s around
biker pubs and festivals in the UK and Europe; played
Brazilian music with Brazilians for many years; and co-ran
my own small record label. I've drummed on albums with
many artists, including Dick Heckstall-Smith, Dogs
D'Amour, Chicago bluesman Lucky "Lopez" Evans, indie
darlings Sharkboy, and lots more. I have been involved in
a number of projects with regular Oysterband producer Al
Scott, and it was he who suggested I sit in for Lee during
his (then) sabbatical.

Outside of music, I enjoy good wine, food, mother nature,
my family and friends of course, and… camouflage. This
unexplainable obsession is rarely seen by others (hahaha).
I am very happily married to Zoe, and not only does she
tolerate all the drum kits piled up in HER music room, she
actually likes one or two of my camo T shirts.

Born in Aberystwyth,
Wales, and brought up in Meltham, Yorks. Dad rarely spoke
Welsh, maybe because they called him Taffy, which he
hated. Mum's family came from Castleford and had a
coal-mining background. Parents were Labour supporters,
grandparents were Communists, so there was no shortage of
political argument in the house. My grandad, Edward
Longley ("Red Ted"), was the greatest influence on my life
when young. From him I got radical politics, the sense of
injustice, al love of nature, a love of lurchers, hatred
of the Tory way of mind, the sense of history, and a short
temper.

Went to grammar school; was made aware of what selection
in schools does to people. Survived school thanks to good
teachers and was the first of my family to get to
university. After football, music was my big love,
particularly Northern Soul. Became the first mod in
Meltham. Learned piano, thankfully.

Went to Exeter University: a revelation, it was so
middle-class. Took Politics and Sociology (people did in
those days). Fell in love with British traditional music
and all things English - learned melodeon, morris-danced,
wore collarless shirts, and generally tried my best to
become an old man before my time. Arrived in Canterbury,
Kent, via London, and met afro-haired, bespectacled
guitarist and severe short-haired Scottish fiddle-player
(among many others in a truly amazing local music scene).
Was an English teacher for some time and became a
year-head in Canterbury's only comprehensive school. I was
a lazy teacher but a good year-head - I think.

Helped form Oyster Ceilidh Band, which in its prime was
the best ceilidh band, anywhere, ever. Took on the role of
singer, went full-time into music, never looked back. Now
I live on the Welsh border and am struggling to learn
Welsh.

From 2008 until 2013, Oysterband consisted of John Jones
(voice, melodeon), Alan Prosser (guitars, voice), Ray
"Chopper" Cooper (bass guitar, cello, voice), Dil Davies
(drums) and Ian Telfer (violin, keyboard,
concertina, voice). Ray moved on to a solo career in
February 2013, and we replaced him with two
musicians: our longtime producer Al Scott on bass
guitar, mandolin and voice, and Adrian Oxaal on cello and
voice.

Our earlier history is more
complicated. At first purely a dance band ("The Oyster
Ceilidh Band"), we soon started experimenting with
radical arrangements of traditional songs and with home
recording, and even put out 4 albums in the early 80s.
These sound harmless enough now, but at the time their
home-made, try-anything attitude was controversial. We
were determined that traditional music should not be
just a branch of the heritage industry.

Other musicians came and went. The name shortened to The
Oyster Band. We began to learn how to write songs. In 1985
we met a new roots-music label, Cooking Vinyl. Step
Outside (1986), with Russell Lax added on drums, was their
first release. We went on to make 9 studio albums with
them.

The late 80s line-up, now John,
Alan, Ian, Ian Kearey and Russ Lax, toured almost
continuously. As well as territories opened up by our
new record company in Scandinavia, Eastern Europe and
North America, and shows with similar-minded artists
such as Michelle Shocked and Billy Bragg, we toured for
the British Council in India, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh,
Japan, Malaysia, Indonesia, Morocco. Travel on this
scale had a powerful impact on our attitudes to the
world and on our songwriting.

It also made normal domestic life difficult. First Ian
Kearey left in 1988, to be replaced by Chopper; then when
Russ Lax left in 1990 Chopper called up his old friend
drummer Lee Partis. The name shortened again at this point
to Oysterband. Russ's last act was to record Freedom And
Rain with us and the great English folk diva June Tabor.
Although it was essentially a covers collection, the songs
were shrewdly chosen, and the album was very well
received, particularly in the US. "Imagine if Aerosmith
and Madonna announced they were to tour together??!!?"
said Rolling Stone,
excitably. By the time we reached Los Angeles, queues
stretched round the block.

Meanwhile in the UK the ground was
shifting. As we were expanding from a folk background,
others were expanding from a rock background in a folk
direction, and the convergence became a new scene. The
Pogues, The Levellers, The Waterboys, Celtas
Cortos....we found ourselves working in a different
context, often called "Celtic" (though the word seems to
mean something different in every country). The US
became harder, but we acquired new audiences in the UK,
Germany and Spain. The high-point of this period is
probably Holy Bandits
(1993); the first song "When I'm Up I Can't Get Down"
was later a substantial hit for Great Big Sea in North
America. (Thanks, guys!)

By 1997 our relations with Cooking Vinyl had cooled
somewhat. We didn't seek a new contract, but we
co-operated with the preparation of a "Best Of" 2-CD
collection, Granite
Years (2000), covering the years 1986-1997.

Like many artists, we then found it
made sense to start our own label, Running Man. A tie-up
with the German company Westpark Music has made
interesting projects possible, such as The Big Session, Vol. 1 (2004),
a live recording of collaborations with June Tabor,
Eliza Carthy, The Handsome Family and others, and a DVD
of The 25th Anniversary Concert (2003). "The Big
Session" is also the name of our very successful annual
Oysterband "signature" festival that began in 2005 at De
Montfort Hall & Gardens, Leicester, and later
graduated to a greenfield site. "The Big Session"
is currently operating as an occasional "pop-up"
festival in iconic venues.

In 2003 we were honoured to receive the "Good Tradition"
award at the BBC Folk Awards, and in 2005 (as
"Oysterband's Big Session") were named "Best Group".

Lee Partis spent some years
training as a counsellor/therapist, even while drumming
and singing for Oysterband. In 2008 he fulfilled a
long-term ambition and left us to work in a prison in
the north of England, possibly a first in the history of
the entertainment industry. He campaigns for expanding
the use of counselling in prisons, a poorly-funded area
of public policy (see his website
www.counsellingoffenders.org.uk). The very experienced
Dil Davies then took over the drummer's stool.

In recent years, we've consciously tried to evolve our
songwriting beyond the clichès of the "Celtic" style, and
with Rise Above
(2002) and especially Meet
You There (2007) we think we're getting
somewhere. Meet You
There was hailed widely as our best recording
ever.

Lately we've also re-explored the
pleasures of completely acoustic playing. In 2008/9 we
put out The Oxford
Girl & Other Stories to mark our (gulp!)
30th anniversary - not a "best of", but stripped-down
re-recordings of some our favourite songs from the whole
of that period. John Jones' solo album Rising Road was
released late in 2009, and Ray "Chopper" Cooper's Tales Of Love, War &
Death By Hanging in May 2010. Alan Prosser also
has two solo albums: Hall
Place (1996) and Makerfield (2003), plus Nomads (2006) with
Brendan Power and Lucy Randall.

However, just when we were thinking of taking a
tea-break, everything was turned upside down again by the
remarkable success of our reunion album with June Tabor
for Topic Records, Ragged Kingdom, released in
2011. Waiting 21 years to make a follow-up to Freedom
& Rain may seem perverse, but hey! both parties
were seriously busy. We never lost our friendship with
June in the meantime, and even played the occasional show
together; and one day the time just seemed right to try
recording together again. Ragged Kingdom gained us
3 more BBC Folk Awards (Best Album, Best Group and Best
Trad Track, plus Folk Singer of the Year for June). We
toured it very enjoyably through 2012 and early 2013 and
featured on BBC TV's Later....with Jules Holland.

And now, back to business. In early
2014 we released a collection of new material, Diamonds
On The Water. The 6-piece line-up with Al Scott
and Adrian Oxaal is getting well bedded in, and gigs are
possibly more fun now than they've ever been. 2015
will see the launch of John Jones' second solo album
(working title Never Stop Moving), and
we're beginning to contemplate doing a "Best Of... Vol
2" to cover the years since 1999.

Even after so long a career, we
can't help feeling the most fruitful time might be right
now.

A while back, we asked a music
journalist to write a description of the band's
career. Here's a slightly shortened version of what he
came up with. It's a little unfinished now, but the
detail is still informative:

"Right through the '80s and early '90s, you'd have been
hard pressed to find something more unhip to be associated
with than… (ahem)… fo*k music.

Oysterband had little choice in the
matter. Influenced by all manner of music, culture and
style, they listened to anything and everything - but
the heartbeat of the band was a deep-rooted love of the
traditional music of Britain.

Not the invented tradition of twee choruses and dodgy
ideologies that inspired a million fake-rustic cliches, a
travesty that turned off the very people it was alleged to
represent. But a tradition that dealt in integrity,
passion, human experience and human emotion - songs that
made you want to dance/laugh/cry/jump for joy/kick a few
heads in. Hey, that could be folk music, it could be rock
music… maybe it's just GOOD music. Whatever, it has helped
the Oysters become one of the most irresistible bands of
the last decade. And the one before that too.

They originally collided in and
around Canterbury, a gang of like-minded mates and
musicians who could jam and practice for free in a squat
near the university. The ones who wanted to give it a go
full-time were Alan Prosser, Ian Telfer, John Jones and
Ian Kearey, and co-opting Russell Lax on drums they
tackled Thatcherite Britain with a rare old vengeance in
the mid-'80s: the rock end of Thatcherite Britain.
Flailing distressingly in a laughable sea of new
romance, postpunk apathy and pop pap, the music world
didn't quite know where to put itself when faced with
this sudden onslaught. Folk-rock - whatever that was -
had long since withered and died and the Oysters, angry
and loud yet still eminently tuneful, were way out on a
limb.

STEP OUTSIDE, first release of new label Cooking Vinyl in
'86, was born to grab attention on several levels (though
maybe not as a PR event - on the day the record came out,
the band were in Bombay doing something else entirely).
Their treatment of the traditional standard Hal-an-Tow was
a keynote track, a venomous statement of intent for a
brave new dawn that clearly involved grabbing folk song by
the scruff of the neck and shaking furiously. This,
alongside some vitriolic social commentaries from their
own pens, got up quite a few noses and dented the veneer
of sweetness and light which was strangling pop and rock
at the time (and a lot of folk and roots music
subsequently).

At every turn since, they've
steadfastly followed their own instincts, gloriously
disregarding irrelevancies such as image, make-believe
musical boundaries and media flavours of the month.
Their own writing took a leap on 1987's WIDE BLUE
YONDER, which included the classic, if seriously
strange, Oxford Girl. It featured an
electrifying cover of Billy Bragg's Between The Wars,
and had a guest appearance from Kathryn Tickell on
Northumbrian pipes some years before Sting had the same
idea. lan Kearey left to be replaced on bass (and,
increasingly, cello) by Chopper, who came to play a
defining role on their next album Ride… and indeed their
sound ever since. Ride - including a cheeky version of
New Order's Love Vigilantes - left us in no
doubt of the band's unconditional commitment to its own
path.

A largely live album, LITTLE ROCK TO LEIPZIG, rounded off
the '80s; while they entered the new decade veering off at
an unexpected tangent, collaborating with the high
priestess of English folk song, June Tabor, on their most
successful album thus far, FREEDOM AND RAIN. They toured
with Tabor too - a tense, fascinating amalgam between two
highly independent and sharply contrasting spirits and
styles which merged into an uneasy dream ticket for
English music. "Imagine if Aerosmith and Madonna announced
they were to tour together…!!" said Rolling Stone
magazine, excitably. It was a refreshing diversion, but
one that distracted the Oysters from the sense of purpose
that had driven them for so long… and it confused their
followers.

DESERTERS in 1992 saw that sense of
purpose dramatically re-emerge, new drummer Lee joining
to complete the current line-up and provide a harder
edge still to a darker style of songwriting. The
contrast between Deserters and the relatively jaunty
Freedom And Rain again confounded the critics.

But by this time the goalposts had shifted again. Bands
like The Levellers had been building a fervent following
with an alternative indie approach that embraced many of
the values pioneered by Oysterband. There was also an
unexpected upsurge of young musicians taking their own
inspiration from folk song and traditional
instrumentation; and with their spectacular '93 album HOLY
BANDITS striking a glorious balance between their own
traditions and a very modern kind of rock, the Oysters
suddenly found themselves talked of as godfathers of a new
English style of roots rock. After years being regarded by
the music industry as on a par with inter-planetary
aliens, it came as a shock to them to discover they were
now 'leaders of a movement'.

If anybody imagined this would
mellow the band they were wrong. After a compilation
album (TRAWLER) on which they rather novelly (and to
Cooking Vinyl's initial horror) decided to re-record
most of the old tracks to enable Chopper and Lee to put
their own stamp on them, they came back in '95 with THE
SHOUTING END OF LIFE, probably the most aggressive and
political album of their career. It was an album of
acute extremes, from the trailblazing title track to
their raging treatment of Leon Rosselson's socialist
national anthem The World Turned Upside Down.

In '97 they teamed up again with friend/producer Alan
Scott for DEEP DARK OCEAN. It came, unpredictably, with a
smile on its face, warm and melodic and, revealing an
unexpected talent for quirky pop music, surprised in an
election year by ignoring politics altogether (except in
the sleevenotes: "Yes, we voted Labour but we didn't
inhale").

HERE I STAND, co-produced with
Alaric Neville, released during the last summer of the
20th Century, created another landmark with the
formation of their own label Running Man. Happily, sales
proved the Oysters' following were not fazed by the
album's provocative (read "risky") mix of austerity,
improvisation, tradition and outright pop; which proved
surprisingly radio-friendly and promises well for the
label's future.

But while marking time with an interesting remix of one
of the Here I Stand songs, Ways Of Holding On, featuring
ice-princess Emma Härdelin from Swedish band Garmarna,
Oysterband were talking to their former label. Autumn 2000
saw the release of a Best Of Oysterband compilation,
titled GRANITE YEARS. Covering the period 1986 to 1997, it
weighed somewhat toward the later albums, partly because
Cooking Vinyl had already licensed out a compilation from
the early albums under the title Pearls From The Oysters
(one the band had successfully avoided using for a great
many years!), and partly because they reckon their writing
has improved with time (and who are we to argue?). The
compilation was Cooking Vinyl's idea, but as it contained
many of the band's most-requested songs, they were happy
too.

"In my time we've drunk away a
century," sang John on I Know It's Mine (track 8 on Here
I Stand). But a tie-up between Running Man and two
linked German labels, Westpark Music and Pläne, made
interesting new projects possible in the new millenium.
On RISE ABOVE (2002), savagely pruned in the course of
recording to its leanest, meanest form, the intensity
and grandeur of traditional tracks such as
Blackwaterside and Bright Morning Star were a
significant extension of the band's aesthetic range.
During the sessions they also picked up Irish piper
James O'Grady, who played on five of the tracks, as a
temporary addition to the line-up; and that diversified
and enriched the band's live sound for a couple of
years.

THE BIG SESSION Vol. 1 (2004) and the DVD of THE 25th
ANNIVERSARY CONCERT (2005) were among the fruits of these
expansions (see elsewhere on this site), and with the
highly successful inauguration of The Big Session Festival
in 2005 as an annual Oyster 'signature' event,
possibilities just seemed to keep on opening up.

After a short lull there then
appeared the remarkable MEET YOU THERE (2007), widely
acclaimed as Oysterband's best album ever. Part of the
secret of its success was its long gestation - with
nothing to prove and no deadlines to meet, the band and
producer Al Scott had leisure to hone the production and
mixing to a fine point, creating rare excitement and
dynamism from an almost entirely acoustic
instrumentation. As Sing Out! said, it's their fullest
realisation of a unique Oysterband sound. The tours that
followed, especially the 30th Anniversary Tour in 2008,
were notable for the intensity and command of the band's
performances.

At the end of 2008 drummer Lee Partis finally decided to
hang up his sticks, and was replaced by Dil Davies. A CD
for the 30th anniversary, THE OXFORD GIRL & OTHER
STORIES, 14 Oyster songs from all eras revisited in their
current dynamic acoustic style, was released in 2009 while
the band took a break to recharge their creative batteries
and plot new ideas.

The new ideas turned out to be a
triumphant reunion with June Tabor after 21 years, first
with the highly-acclaimed album RAGGED KINGDOM, which
garnered 3 more Folk Awards (plus a fourth for June) and
was voted fROOTS Magazine's Album Of The Year for
2011; and then in two years of concentrated
touring and festival appearances.

In 2013 Ray "Chopper" Cooper left Oysterband to pursue a
solo career, and that marked the end of an era. Undaunted,
the band promptly wrote and recorded a 13th studio album,
Diamonds On The Water, released in February
2014.